Will my insurance pay for an IUD removal?

Q. I have health insurance through my husband’s union. I need to have my IUD removed and replaced and it is not covered by insurance. The self-pay price is over $1,000. Is there anything I can do about this?

A. You can appeal the coverage denial to your health plan. Under the health law, patients generally don’t have to pay anything out of pocket for medical care that’s considered preventive, and contraceptives are included in that definition.

The only broad exemption from the preventive coverage requirement is for plans that are considered grandfatheredunder the law because they haven’t significantly changed benefits or consumer costs since the law passed in 2010. In addition, some religious organizations are exempt from the requirement to provide birth control services without cost sharing.

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Unless your plan is exempt from the rules for one of the above reasons, chances are you shouldn’t owe anything out-of-pocket for having your IUD replaced.

As noted above, insurers can use “reasonable medical management” in applying the law. So, for example, an insurer might try to impose limits on the number of IUDs someone can receive over the course of a year, says Adam Sonfield, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute who authored a report examining implementation of the contraceptive coverage requirements under the law.

But assuming you simply need a new IUD because it’s time for a replacement, “if she’s not in a grandfathered plan, it sure sounds to me like that’s a violation,” says Sonfield.